Selvin's cultural history tells the definitive story of The Rolling Stones’ infamous Altamont concert with exclusive and never-before revealed details.The Altamont Speedway Free Festival, held on December 6, 1969, has long been seen as the distorted twin of Woodstock—the day that shattered the Sixties’ promise of peace and love when a concertgoer was killed by a member of the Hells Angels, the biker club hired as security. While most people know of the events from the film Gimme Shelter, the whole story has remained buried in varied accounts, rumor, and myth...until now.

The product of 20 years of exhaustive research and dozens of interviews with many key players, including medical staff, Hells Angels members, the stage crew, and the musicians who were there, and featuring 16 pages of color photos, Altamont is the ultimate account of the final event in rock’s formative and most turbulent decade.

We're a little past the half-way mark of 2016 already, so it seemed like a perfect time to reflect upon the fantastic in-store shows we've put on at all three of our Amoeba locations: San Francisco, Berkeley, and Hollywood. Each and every live performance we present at our stores is a unique and thrilling experience for the audience and staff, but some shows just have that extra bit of magic to make them stand out as our favorites. Enjoy our lists of top five in-store shows of 2016 (so far)!

Amoeba Bay Area: San Francisco & Berkeley

The Mystery Lights at Amoeba SF: July 31, 2016
Every so often we book a band right before or just as they explode onto the scene in a big way. Although The Mystery Lights has put out a couple of releases since 2009, the NY-by-way-of-Salinas, California band just released their self-titled debut on Daptone Records' new subsidiary Wick and it's gaining momentum. Their sound is sinister garage - the darker side of the '60s Nuggets, Pebbles, and Back From The Grave comps. Think the proto-punk of The Seeds, The Sonics, Jesters of Newport. Unlike many garage rock revivalists, The Mystery Lights don't just recreate the sound; these guys channel it spiritually, putting on a raucous show led by the howling, jumping, guitar-wielding Mike Brandon.

Amoeba SF is rolling out prime slabs of vinyl from two huge LP collections we recently acquired!

The first haul is from a friend of Amoeba's whose main collection focus is on guitar: Rock guitar, Jazz guitar, acoustic Blues guitar, Country guitar...you name it and if it has a guitar it's probably represented here. There are over 5,000 LPs in this acquisition and many are original issues and are mostly in near-mint condition!

The second haul is an even larger collection (squeeee!) and the selection is wide-ranging, including Punk, Soul, Jazz, Rock, Lounge, Classical, audiophile recordings, and more. There are over a hundred Beatles LPs alone, including a couple of Butcher covers! Let's just grab a handful randomly and see what we get: Nico, Operation Ivy, Gene Clark, Otis Redding, and Carla Thomas - all original and in great shape!

Visit Amoeba SF today and often to experience the gradual unveiling of these two ginormous additions to our stellar in-store stock.

In 1985, The Chills played a few nights at the very non-glamorous central Christchurch booze barn, The Carlton Hotel, and like I did for most bands on New Zealand's illustrious Flying Nun label at the time, I trudged down to check 'em out. I'd seen quite a few of their shows since their formation in the early '80s, but this one was different. They were always good, but this time I felt like something really special was happening, maybe even a kind of genius (much as I hate using that word).

This was the 9th or 10th lineup of the band, but this one - with original bass player Terry Moore back in the band, human metronome Alan Haig (later of Snapper) on drums, and colorful keyboardist Peter Allison - was the one where it all fell into place for me and the other over-capacity 500-odd people there (Fire code? What fire code?). They moved from their most quiet moments (delicate pieces of Beatles-y/Left Banke/Summer of Love-style whimsical psych) to an increasingly roaring cacophonous sound that filled the bar (and my poor ears) with awe. Where was it coming from? With only one guitarist? (There's still largely unrecorded songs from this period, like "Frozen Fountain" and "Silhouette," that would wipe away once and for all the notion that the band was the "poppy" Flying Nun band.)

Martin Phillipps was the songwriter, guitarist, and autocrat of the band, and, although he would never be accused of being the most alpha of males, was directing the traffic that night just as single-mindedly as he directed the evolution of his band (check out In Love With These Times, Flying Nun founder Roger Shepherd's excellent memoir, for a good take on Phillipps' rationale for the many lineup changes through the '80s and beyond). I knew Martin a little (mostly from a recent lengthy Steinlager-fueled interview at his Dunedin home, a consequence of my part-time gig as music writer for The Christchurch Press) and he was happy to admit he was fascinated by fantasy and comic books, but at the same time was fiercely adamant that The Chills were not just pure escapism...a claim backed up by the "Doledrums" 45 that addressed the dole (Government unemployment benefits) culture in NZ at the time.

Clams Casino is one of few producers capable of constructing an otherworldly atmospheric scape in his music. Clams takes you somewhere when listening; he engulfs you in sound indicting a mood and ambiance totally his own. Clams' music is beyond commendable production values. It's depth and spatial atmosphere is meticulously sculpted from the ground up. His music develops layer by layer, structured from a starting point, the skeleton becomes a body as mass is created from Clams’ brilliant sampling and epically booming drums. His signature sound is ever-present in his releases but has never been delivered in a cohesive body as breathtakingly grand as 32 Levels.

32 Levels is Clams Casino’s album debut. He's defined nearly an entire sub-genre influenced by the production behind iconic cuts like A$AP Rocky’s “Palace” and and Lil B’s “I am God.” His past releases have included the 2011 Rainforest EP and a series of mixtape installments simply titled Instrumentals, featuring beats used by artists like Lil B, Soulja Boy, Main Attrakionz, Antwon, A$AP Rocky, and more. His name is more so known from the individual hits “Palace,” which introduces and sets the mood for A$AP Rocky’s first project Live Love A$AP’s entirety. As well as “I am God,” which played a part in shaping and evolving Lil B’s ‘The Based God’ entity. Beyond that he's also produced for major acts like The Weeknd, Foster the People, Mikky Ekko, ScHoolboy Q, Pepperboy, and more. Through massive, select productions Clams has made a major name for himself over the past five years, all without an album. The debut of 32 Levels exudes Clam’s ethereal and atmospheric sound and advances it in a cohesive culmination that goes beyond any of his early compilations.